UN: ISIS and govt forces guilty of atrocities in Iraq

A militant Islamist fighter gestures as he takes part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province (Reuters) / Reuters

Islamic State militants have carried out atrocities on “an unimaginable scale” over several months of fighting in Iraq, a UN official said in an emergency debate Monday. The UN agreed to send a commission to the country to investigate.

The UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Flavia
Pansieri, who opened the debate in Geneva, said there is
“strong evidence” that Islamic State (IS), formerly
known as ISIS, groups have carried out numerous atrocities
including killings, beheadings, torture, sexual abuse and
conversions.

“The reports we have received reveal acts of inhumanity on an
unimaginable scale. Systematic and intentional attacks on
civilians may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Individuals, including commanders, are responsible for these
acts,” she said.

Pansieri added that she was particularly concerned with the
persecution of Iraq’s religious minorities including the Shia,
Yazidis, Christians and Turkmen.

“These communities have lived side by side, on the same soil,
for centuries and in some cases for millennia,” she said,
adding that IS has carried out ethnic and religious cleaning.

The Yazidis have suffered extremely harshly under IS. Many men
who refused to convert to Islam were reportedly executed and at
least 2,250 Yazidi women and children are being held as hostage,
while others are used as sex slaves.

She added that Iraqi police and government forces had also
committed acts that amounted to war crimes.
Government allied militias opened fire on a mosque in Khanaquin
district north east of Baghdad, killing 73 men and boys and Iraqi
police executed a number of detainees in Tal Afar.

Iraqi forces have also shelled towns and carried out airstrikes
near Kirkuk, Fallujah, and Salahuddin, which killed and injured
dozens of civilians.

The one day UN session was called by Iraq with the support of its
allies and agreed to a request by Baghdad to send a team of UN
experts to investigate the crimes committed since IS swept
through Iraq in June.

Mohammad Shia al-Sudani, Iraq’s Human Rights Minister, told the
session that IS was “oozing with barbarity” and
threatened the make-up of his country and the entire world, but
did not respond to allegations of atrocities carried out by Iraqi
troops.

“The land of ancient Babylon is subjected to threats to its
very independence, they are attempting to change its demographic
and cultural composition,” he said.

ISIS is a "trans-national phenomenon that poses an imminent
danger to all countries of the world, it defies all human rights
principles and international law,” he added.

The Sunni Muslim Gulf states as well as the West have all
denounced IS, although they bear some of the responsibility for
its rapid rise to dominance for indirectly helping to create a
situation in Iraq and to a lesser degree Syria, where such an
organization could thrive.

“The organization has nothing to do with Islam, even if they
carry the name,” said Jamal al-Ghunaim, Kuwait’s ambassador.

Russia, which has also supplied some arms to counter IS, said
that the rise of IS could have been avoided.

"ISIS acquired a huge potential: it now controls colossal
financial resources that it has seized, is pursuing illegal oil
trade and has a considerable arsenal of modern weaponry. All this
could have been avoided if the international community had taken
measures at the time to remove this cancer at an early stage of
its formation," said Moscow's ambassador to the UN in
Geneva, Aleksey Borodavkin.

In August at least 1,420 people were killed in Iraq, the UN
estimated. A further 1,370 Iraqis sustained injuries while
600,000 people were forced to flee as the IS, which has grabbed
large areas of territory since June, pushed into land controlled
by Kurdish troops.